Why Users Click Right Call to Actions More Than Left

http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-users-click-right-call-to-actions-more-than-left

by dshankar • 15 years ago

52 21 15 years ago

blahedo• 15 years ago

Nice in principle, but it'd be better if it could show real data. This post is basically "why we would expect users to click right-side call-to-actions more than left-side" without actually backing it up and showing that they actually do so.

Jebdm• 15 years ago

I agree. I can even corroborate the hypothesis anecdotally, since CTAs on the right side "feel" right to me, but without data it's still just a hypothesis.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

This seems utterly groundless to me, especially because it doesn't describe my eye movement.

Perhaps it's because I'm left-handed. Perhaps it's because I know content is always left-justified (and let's understand each other- I'm not at your web page for anything other than content). Either way, I don't pay much attention to the bottom right area of a web page.

zyphlar2• 15 years ago

You must read a lot of websites that are all forums, plain text. Web services and online stores on the other hand need techniques like this to lay out things in a way that makes sense. Imagine if Wal Mart had its cash registers in the back and only niche expensive items at the front. Sales would drop. In fact I think I just realized why malls suck so bad.

tuhin• 15 years ago

The Ballpark site has the CTA at the right bottom part of the page as well. So even they are following the principle/assumption rather than neglecting it.

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

This is unlikely to apply to the billions of people that read right to left however.

zyphlar2• 15 years ago

Those sites are designed oppositely. This principle applies to movies and in fact anything with a frame around it, there are certain emotions and intents communicated with framing. Think of this as website framing.

bluedanieru• 15 years ago

Hmmm, I was expecting some interesting explanation why. (It's obvious enough I guess, but sometimes even 'obvious' facts have explanations more intriguing than you might at first suspect.) This article just tells me the fact of it and what to do about it.

MercuryCreative2• 15 years ago

There is no data in the article to back up the author's hypothesis. Further no control for colors or even action/offer button language. I have read other papers with data and conducted my own UX studies that show completely different results.

matthewlyle• 15 years ago

Care to share?

MercuryCreative2• 15 years ago

I really would but I'll have to check with my clients. They were commissioned reports. Perhaps once I get everything compiled into something consumable by the public I'll release it as it's own HN post.

The gist of it was that to drive interaction with a website, cursor position is more important than following the "active corners" design philosophy.

So from a pure graphic design point of view placing the action button in the lower right is correct. We all learned that in design class.

However if you want people to actually interact with your action button then it's better to put it closer to where the cursor normally resides. All of my heat map testing shows there to be a natural cursor well on the left hand side.

destraynor• 15 years ago

This article is nonsense. Disregard.

sudonim• 15 years ago

Flipping through ABTests.com, I was hard pressed to find pages that tested having the call to action (CTA) on the left vs. CTA on the right.

I did find one for basecamp where they flipped left to right but it may not be the reason for the improvement. http://www.abtests.com/test/150001/homepage-for-basecamp

Without any evidence from the OP, how can we take the article seriously?

nchlswu• 15 years ago

It's disappointing how many UX blogs, sites and "professionals" don't back up their claims with data.

Too many articles give rationale behind design decision while presenting reasoning as fact without supporting them with real data. There's nothing wrong with providing readers your reasoning, but in an area such as UX, I think these posts are more dentrimental than they are beneficial to those coming up in the field.

merloen• 15 years ago

I cannot parse this title at all. How about "Why it matters where you place buttons that call for action."

larrik2• 15 years ago

I don't know a ton about internet marketing, but I DO know that it pisses me off when reading through the archives of a webcomic, and the Next Page button is on the top instead of the bottom (it should really be in both places, though).

Seems like a similar idea.

synnik• 15 years ago

I'm amused that a UX article has such a poorly written headline that I had to read it 5 times before I my brain parsed it properly.

scott_s• 15 years ago

I gave up trying to parse it, and didn't understand it until I read (skimmed) the article.

bxr• 15 years ago

I thought it was going to have to do with left click vs right click until half way into the article. In retrospect it was kind of a silly thing to assume, but thats what my first pass saw, and I use enough software at work that likes to throw everything important under the right click anyway that it seemed plausible.

larrik2• 15 years ago

I agree. I had assumed it was a reference to Right Click>Open in New Tab, and the the whole idea was the a user would open your call to action for after reading the current (something I do constantly).

araneae• 15 years ago

You can also do the opposite to your advantage. For instance, the ad pop-ups on salon.com have the close button on the left, which means I end up looking at the ads a little longer.

Why Users Click Right Call to Actions More Than Left

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